In October 2019 I decided to give the 24 hour comics another go. It was an honourable failure: sixteen pages in sixteen hours (within twenty-six hours) I’m happy with the results which formed the backbone for chapters 27-28 of the novel. So I present it for you now, and as a download if you prefer.
You can find out more about the book at https://andy-luke.com/occupied and order OCCUPIED direct from Amazon, and you should.
One of the most explosive installments in Occupied is loosely based on the 2010 anti-tuition fees march in Belfast. At the urging of editor Claire Burn, (“this chapter was incredible… send this one”), I’m making this available now as a free PDF download.
The morning after the strike the camp was thick with frost and the three girls in the marquee sat in a wafting mist. Regardless, there was colour in Cat’s cheeks. She and Jack were talking about where they went for bargain clothes. It transpired they each went to the same charity shops. Kiera said they dressed so differently she’d never have realised it to look at them. The interruption introduced himself as Alex. He was well groomed, and dressed in a sports coat and slacks, smiles and winks all round. Alex sat down a little too close to Jack for her liking, but she let it go. Alex kept his his options open, making eye contact with Cat.
‘God, yous are game, camping out in this weather. So are yous into politics then?’ he asked unironically.
Cat responded dryly, and disinterested. ‘Nah. Whatever gave you that idea?’
‘Ha! Did you hear about that strike yesterday?’ he asked.
‘Well duh,’ said Kiera.
‘They said the UK could be on the brink of another recession,’ said Alex.
‘That’s the word. Not just us: Europe, America, Asia,’ replied Jack.
‘Yeah. It’s all starting up again, honey. You’ve got to wonder.’
Eoghan zipped his tent closed and wandered up the path, bleary eyed.
‘Alright Eoghan,’ said Kiera.
‘It’s all engineered,’ said Alex.
‘Morning,’ said Cat.
‘What’s happening?’ asked Eoghan.
‘Am I detecting some animosity here?’ asked Alex.
Eoghan threw his head back, puzzled. ‘No. No animosity,’ he said.
‘It’s okay. Eoghan’s a friend,’ said Jack.
‘Oh. Just a friend? Nothing more?’ enquired Alex.
For a moment no-one spoke.
‘What’s up with you this morning? You’re looking worse for wear,’ noted Cat.
Eoghan sniffed. ‘Ah, just tired and fucked off.’
‘What’s the matter?’ she said.
‘Ach. The usual. You-know-who is sticking their oar in again and we’ve all this shit to do before the rally on Saturday and I haven’t had a day off this week.’
‘That’s what they want though, isn’t it? They all get together and decide,’ said Alex.
‘Same old shit,’ said Eoghan, and he began to pour out a bowl of cereal.
‘Wait. Who decides?’ said Jack.
‘Well, that’s it,’ said Alex. ‘Labour and Conservatives argue
over which of them go to war. They get India and Pakistan to agree to fight. It’s the Illuminati.’
‘Oh, the Illuminati?’ said Cat.
Eoghan moved slowly to take his seat.
‘It’s true. That’s how they see consensus. War: good for the economy, good for technology. We’re in the middle of things they set up three hundred years ago. Go and look it up on Wikipedia.’
‘Aye. Wikipedia it, Cat,’ said Jack sarcastically.
Kiera turned her face away from them and broke out in a huge grin.
‘I don’t think they’re capable of planning that far ahead,’ said Cat.
‘The Illuminati,’ said Eoghan. ‘A secret organisation causing chaos in the world, though not doing a very good job of disguising themselves.’
‘It’s true. This current situation is all carried out by finance capitalists pretending to look weak. They manufacture a narrative that they’re hard done by so that they can turn round and do it again in five years time.’
‘He has a point,’ said Cat.
Fred staggered out of The Love Shack, one shoe crushed under the weight of his sweaty heel. The new streams of drizzle slapped his creased face. He hobbled on the slimy path a bit before fixing his shoe. Eoghan looked at Alex with scepticism.
‘That’s balls. You’re saying they didn’t get caught with their hands in the till, but they wanted to get caught?’
‘They staged it. They rule us by division. Even this movement of yours! Capitalist society is run by the secret elite. They’re dedicated to preserving bloodlines –’
Eoghan mimicked an English aristocrat. ‘What? Capitalism is a boys club, filled only with the wealthy? And the rich people only marry other rich people? My god, does anybody know? Does Lenin or Trotsky know?’
Fred took a bowl and filled it with cereal and milk, and sat down next to Alex.
‘It’s fucking obvious,’ Eoghan ranted. ‘Princes marry Princesses, they become Queens and Kings. That’s the whole system staying in place!’
‘Alright Fred. Are you off somewhere?’ asked Kiera.
‘I’ve to sign on in ten minutes. It’s twenty minutes walk: uphill all the way.’
‘It served a logical purpose possibly at one time,’ said Eoghan, ‘but it wasn’t a great system. People were trying to overthrow it for years.’
‘Well it’s true,’ insisted Alex. ‘The Illuminati are going to take over the world and kill everybody.’
Eoghan raised his voice as he became increasingly frustrated. ‘There’s no such fucking thing as the Illuminati! Look. Have you ever read the books by Robert Anton Wilson?’
‘I don’t read books, said Alex.
‘You don’t read books? You don’t read books?’ yelled Eoghan.
Again, no-one spoke. Fred froze with his spoon before his mouth, milk dribbling off it.
‘Ah!’ exclaimed Alex. ‘Sure it’s all the fucking Jews anyway.’
Everyone was staring at him except for Fred who got to his feet and slammed his bowl and spoon onto the chair behind him, splashing milk onto Alex’s trousers. He glared at Alex. ‘That’s what I like to wake up to in the morning. A good old bit of anti-Semitism. Who doesn’t need a bit of beat-the-Jew over breakfast? Fuck this. I’m going back to bed.’
Occupied: Mixed Up Media was my fourth 24 hour comic, following Gran, Absence and Don’t Get Lost. Created in Farset Labs in 2014 it served as a rough draft for Occupied chapters 11-12:
Optimising this for the web I followed the style Stephen Downey used at absencecomic.com. The images were merged in blocks of six with the easy free filesmerge.com making sure to keep altering the merge order as the display changed it in order of load. WordPress typically shaved 82% off image size but Freshtechtips provided a no-plug in solution: through settings to Media Settings and saving all image sizes to zero. The blocks of six were then re-saved to a 640 horizontal (maintaining aspect ratio) for efficient rendering, and re-merged.
This post was made possible by my supporters on Patreon before the three-month hiatus. The final version of prose novel Occupied is available to buy from Amazon in paperback, hardback and Kindle formats. Libraries and retailers, contact me about cheaper than Amazon stock. You can read more about the novel on this page on this website.
Quick plug for The Drew and Look Podcast: latest episodes on Hardwicke House and Press Gang are up at https://anchor.fm/andyluke
I’ve been a bit rubbish at promoting The Lost Tribes since publishing it at the tail end of 2018. In hindsight, it was a bad choice for a second novel. It has none of the hooks of altruism or education which have garnered me good reception. Indeed, it’s a nasty book with no redeeming characters, and the central epic of the Ulster Cycle is purposely anti-academic, told through an unreliable berate-r narrator.
(For an actual sourced rendition of these legends, buy up Patrick Brown’s Cattle Raid of Cooley graphic novel.)
‘Spide’ is a slang term in popular usage in Northern Ireland referring to feckless male troublemakers, junkies and layabouts. Another variant is ‘steek’. In England the equivalent is ‘chav’, so I’m told. Spide’s roots come from 1970s Ulster paramilitaries, who wore spider tattoos on their necks, before becoming more casually used. (I suspect that word link muted one editor to compromising over a similarly branded but tangential work.)
The short novel is narrated by Dan Spide, who along with his sidekick Ape, is typical of those Irvine Welsh archetypes to be found on any low-rent council estate: swilling cheap lager; sexist; racist; horizons peaking with the next welfare cash or anticipated beating.
‘The Lost Tribes’ is a multi-fold extension, viewing the scoundrels’ own psychological turmoil in the wider culture of local authority figures with batshit insane philosophies. It’s a feature of N. Ireland’s political communications that a small vocal elite polices with literal Bible truths , Westboro Baptist ethics and tacitly endorsing paramilitary acts.
A subset of these subscribe to an Ulster-British concept where they self-identify as direct descendants of Israel’s lost tribe of Dan. Peter Robinson. Nelson McCausland. Edwin Poots. Never mind that the lost tribe of Dan has more biblical links to God’s banished, (necromancy, for one), these lead politicos and their advisors draw their family trees from Jeremiah and Jacob through Conchobar, Nuada and classical Irish myth. Stories where study tells of alteration to improve the fiction. The time displacement reeks.
I wanted to understand and show the perspectives of Dan and Ape and of these crazy rulers of the world. I’ve paired their ‘truths’ with the train route between Northern and Southern Ireland , making for a sort of psycho’s geography. It’s stories within stories, a slow build into an Indiana Jones romp, if Indy was a paranoid xenophobe. I’ve read their literature. The sources make for the most un-credible conspiracy theories.
[Link] Spide: The Lost Tribes has been released today in print through Amazon.
[Link] Four by the week posts on my NanoWrimo experience.
[Link] to interview with Eileen Walsh of Derry Drive 105 were we talk about 24 hour comics, Absence, Spide and NaNoWrimo.
[Link] I’ll be reading brand new poetry at Mixed Jam, on December 10th from 5-7pm. That’s at East Belfast’s 248 East Bistro, which is a lovely venue.
‘Bout! The Fight-Zine’ is a new short comic by John Robbins. I love how John tells stories. ‘Bout!’ is funny, a bit deranged and prime twisting. It’s free: go and read it via @ComicsWendy this half hour!
Spide: The Lost Tribes is out on Thursday. In case you missed it, capsule review: two Belfast louts get roped into a Free Presbyterian grail quest, sped by the Dublin-Belfast Enterprise train and through the pages of history. The narrator, Dan Spide, is sat backwards on the journey, now that I think to tell you. I’ve caught most of everything else in the wee novella. The link to give out is https://tinyurl.com/thelosttribes – why not pre-order it in case Amazon crashes?
Advance feedback’s good and today the first full review is up from Chris McAuley at Talking Comics:
https://talkingcomicssite.wordpress.com/2018/10/28/spide-the-lost-tribes-a-novel-by-andy-luke/
The excellent cover is by @TheMarcSavage who was shooting for the Drew Struzan movie poster scale and succeeded. You can also find Marc at @media_large. I’ll be talking about it to Eileen Walsh on @Drive105 FM in Derry Wednesday morning.
At the weekend I was in Derry for Comics City Fest where a good time was had by alcohol. My comrades for the too-old-to-do-this nights drink were the wildcard Darren McCay, and No-Selfie Will Simpson. Here’s a shot of ‘The Ambassador’ with Lightspeed Stephen Downey.
The Comic City event at the Guildhall was bustling popular. Thanks to Dave Campbell and all the staffers who worked to make it be.
National Novel Writing Month is upon us: extreme prose writing and I’m using it to catch up on an outstanding project. When not smashing up telephones, I’ll be scowling at loud grandparents in cafes up and down the country.
Filling in on Patreon this month: 24 hour comics never seen before. That’s pretty big news actually. Should probably be a headline somewhere. Cough, cough.
(All calls are screened before the telephone ejection policy is decided)
Culture Night is almost upon us. It’s the biggest day of the year for Belfast with a hundred thousand descending on… four hundred events? All run by volunteers.
I’ll be doing my in-demand poet thing this year: because I’m a poet, who writes poetry. First off is Inspire’s Time for Tea by Lombard House, 10-20 Lombard Street from 5:30-7pm. It’s a family oriented event. Inspire perform valuable mental health services, and they’re co-hosting with Addiction NI.
Then I’ll make my way through the crowds to the Costa Coffee on Castle Place. From 7-9pm Studio NI/Titania are running a unique Open Mic with performances filmed and some contest or other. Turn up to both and I’ll not pop the same material.
Terry Wiley passed away earlier this month. Terry was an independent cartoonist. He had a style which any-one could look at and say, ‘that’s a Wiley’. He was detailed and graceful and infused his characters with life. In the 90s he co-created Sleaze Castle with Dave McKinnon. A tale of dimension hopping students, it drew influence from psychedelia, Subgenius, and quantum malarkey and Terry brought all of that to the pages in every conceivable magical aspect. Sleaze Castle had, perhaps, a cult following? A small but passionate readership. Terry was similarly magical. He looked part-squirrel, part gnome, and could be so easy-going I found him a bit intimidating on our first meets. Or maybe I was star-struck. Or maybe it was because that first time I had the accidental honour (and I was aware of it) of sitting next to Terry and Dave for a Balti in Birmingham, and I’d never seen candles under food or a balti bowl before.
The 2013 MCR – Jay Eales, Terry Wiley, Lee Kennedy
Huh. There’s too much to write about Terry. He was a regular fixture at the CAPTION festivals, sketching and yarning, and building unusual props. It was the Midwinter Comics Retreats, (MCRs), organised by Debra Boyask, where I got to know him. Recipe: a dozen cartoonists in a country cottage, plied with home-cooked food and booze, tasked with creating a book over a weekend. It was Christmas come early, with a substitute family. (Debra made sure all the men wore ties at dinner)
The MCR comics were high nonsense. Above, Terry describes the plot of the first two. This page introduces the third book, Hellspoon.
Terry was massively prolific, finishing about two to three pages a day. Somehow he also found time for the craic, curmudgeonly rants, and enlightening us with poignant observations. Ha! I’m just remembering the last MCR. We’d picked up that it was also the abbreviation for My Chemical Romance, whose lead singer Gerard Way also writes for DC comics. Our MCR was traditionally happy to be low-key, but Jay and Terry got it into their heads it might be fun to take back the hashtag, and so began uploading pages and jest-trolling MCR fans on Twitter.
The League of Jeremies, by Terry Wiley, from MCR Hellspoon.
There’s a selection of the Retreat Comics for free on the Factor Fiction website, and some other books Terry worked on with them. His last work was Verity Fair, which I’ve heard nowt but great things about.
I visited Terry in the care home a few weeks before he passed. He was more concerned about me than about himself. That was the measure of him. He was well loved throughout the communities. He was brave as could be.
I have a lot of new work up on Patreon. The poems Handle-Guards, K. What? and Green-Way/Decoded. There’s also new short stories, The Youth of 2062 and Riot City, Junk Garage. Very soon these are joined by the first-look at my new novella, Spide: The Lost Tribes. More on that soon.
Take care of yourself and yours. Good night,
Andy
Image Source: Roelli, P. (2005) The Thanka Wall overlooking Tasilhunpo. Retrieved online
June 9, 2018 at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tashi_Lhunpo_Monastery
Hamburg, British Zone of Occupation.
Thursday 20 May, 1948.
She is seventy-one: thin, quietly drained; a pale feat of a woman. Her expression is sour. Time has pressed her cheeks inward, clamped her mouth shut. She might have been happy, but that time has passed. They all knew he would meet a bitter destiny. Margarethe pours the pan’s boiling water into the teapot and replaces the cover. Margarethe Lincoln: always faithful to him.
Sun light fades and then bursts through the windows in the kitchen and the lounge. Indifferent, it pushes through the blind onto the brown chairs and carpet. Margarethe’s home is a simple two-up, two-down; her brother-in-law in the guest bedroom. Her youngest, Clifford, stokes the fire. His Uncle Simon’s face is in the paper. Simon is sixty-eight. He resembles his brother with balding thin black hair. The pot is wrapped in an oven glove and set on the table. Margarethe is glad Simon will spend another few days here.
Deep black coal smokes in the lounge. Clifford pours the tea, and they talk about his Uncle Lajos, now Louis. Still living in Cleveland, reading his socialist papers, but too ill to travel. Simon’s step-brother, Julius, at fifty-five is still serving in the army. There is an unspoken agreement between the men to avoid talking about ‘their famous one’.
The Abbot Chaokung was reported to have died in Shanghai on October 6th, 1943. They said it was an intestinal virus. In death there are as many stories of him: that he spent his remaining days with drug dealers and white slavers; that the FBI knew he was operating as a Nazi spy; that he was interred in Shanghai’s Hongkou Ghetto. There were reports that he had been poisoned. That he had written a letter to Hitler full of demands and threats. A friend saw him in hospital, but the next day she found a different man in his bed. In her search for him, she was repeatedly turned away until she learned he was in a private suite and private meant private. There was a funeral but no one saw a body. The German National Observer claimed he died in Vienna. American troops allegedly found his grave but the coffin was empty. Since then he has been sighted at his home-town Paks, in New York, and in Argentina. Simon wanted to write a book about his brother fifteen years ago. The British consulate in New York were cold to him and it put an end to the idea. Ignacz and he quarrelled but Simon thought he could put the hate behind him. Coal crackles and splashes cinders over the hearth which disappear in the mesh fireguard.
When Margarethe returns they are talking about Sandor. He never left the Budapest family home, and so Clifford never met him. The sun glares through the living room blind and subsides again. Margarethe recalls Sandor. They met once or twice. He appeared shy, but likeable. Then she thinks of his fate: taken to Auschwitz, never to return. She is shaking. The good son helps her to her seat. Simon bows his head. The fire provides some heat now and his eyes are watering too. He knows his sister-in-law’s tears are not over Sandor. He is here because news reached them a week ago that John is dead. His mother, who left him on Java, struggles to work past the fault line, and to grieve properly. When the Japanese occupied Indonesia, John was interred in Lapas Sukamiskin prison. After years of torture, he moved to Western Australia. He struggled to adapt. His restaurant crashed and John took his own life. opened up a restaurant. Sorrow drips from Margarethe’s chin as she goes for fresh bedding.
Simon listens for her reaching the top of the stairs before picking up his paper. He removes a sheet, stands and pulls out the fireguard. Clifford takes the paper out of his hands. Simon shakes his head but the nephew is already reading. The sun light expands, from the kitchen and the lounge, coalescing in the doorway between them. It is faded, like a spectre of something here long ago. A void: an outward expression of an inward fear. Clifford is reading that his father, Trebitsch Lincoln, has been sighted at a monastery in Darjeeling. The journalist suggests perhaps it is a stop-off on his journey toward Tibet. The off-white light creeps towards the dimpled edges of the tabloid. It is a near humanoid shape, a no-detail silhouette, fluctuating. Trebitsch Lincoln has passed on. He is no longer alive: on this earth, this plane; certainly, not in this room.
“Lies! Lies!” the void shouts. “Do not listen to them, son. They will print everything and anything about me if it serves their own devilish ways!”
The rest of the column is the usual potted biography: Canadian preacher; British MP; double agent; military advisor and Buddhist monk.
“Don’t bother reading that,” says Simon.
“Simon?” says the void, “What is he doing? Here in my home? This is not your family, robber!”
“Your father treated me appallingly,” said Simon. “He took money from me. When the FBI were looking for him, they arrested me.”
“He compromised my security! Scoundrel! How dare you???” asks the void, throwing it’s hand in the air, holding its head with the other.
“But, Clifford, I forgave him long ago,” said Simon.
He takes the news-sheet back. The fireplace gives out a coughing fit sending white coal dust into the ray of light. Simon tears the newspaper into strips while the void stamps: fury without sound.
“I was a Christian minister and a Buddhist monk. I am completely sure I practised forgiveness before you knew the meaning of the word!”
“He tried his best with you, and your brothers. The notion of him in Tibet,” says Simon, “Well, it is just newspaper lies. You don’t want your mother to see that.” He scrunches the paper into balls.
“Tibet, yes! That is the place I will go to now. I will guide it, help it build railways to other realms, and reclaim my status ushering in a future universe of equal rights for all people!!”
In the stomach of the fireplace, the newspaper flickers slowly into flakes of rising ash which fall at the big feet of the void creature.
“T o T i b e t!!” it exclaims.
The void disperses into silver grey molecules, floating between sun-ray and dust, and then settling on the carpet.
Four thousand, two hundred and fifty two miles away above the city of Shigatse, monks walk the walls of Tashi Lhunpo. The gilded turrets and canopies are charged by the sun. The delicately painted Thanka wall stands on a hill over the temple, in blue sky. A moment later, there is a black dot in the heavens, a lone aeroplane shaped dot.
#
Brought to you by patreon.com/andyluke where you can read dozens of commentaries, poems, shorts and comics strips.
Image Source: Tri Relbachen, one of famous 3 dharma kings of Tibet (Aug 3, 2015) The Off:
About Best Himalayan Adventures. Retrieved online June 1st, 2018 at
http://theoff.info/Adventure-Travel/himalayas/himachal-pradesh/tri-relbachen-one-offamous-
3-dharma-kings-of-tibet/
Martin Fischer is a family man. A pastor’s son with a Norwegian wife and three children. For thirty years he served as German Consul at Beijing and Mukden. On joining the Nazi Party in ‘37 he’s transferred to Shanghai. Ribbentrop trusts Fischer, but more and more the Wilhelmstrasse Office pushes him to take a hard-line. Fischer is the conduit when the Japanese are asked to restrict immigration; to treat enemy nationals as such; when Nazi reach is to be extended with a local HQ and propaganda bureau. Fischer cannot prevent the influx of party members to consular services. They weaken co-ordination of German political affairs in China. Men like Louis Siefkin, who use diplomatic cover for intelligence gathering.
Siefkin’s Abwehr spy ring brings the embassy a procession of callers. Staff must deal with boat-spotters, librarians, crooks and couriers. There are engineers and announcers for the half dozen radio stations run from the back room. The best, XGRS, supplies China with news-casts, commentaries and sketches in six different languages. XGRS is the pet project of Foreign Minister Ribbentrop, so Fischer tows the line. SS and Abwehr operations are required to be kept apart from the Foreign Office. Conversely, protocol requires consul staff must read all incoming and outgoing messages. Siefkin infuriates them by using his own personal code. When the Abwehr in Berlin ask for more details of Siefkin’s meeting with Chaokung, Fischer makes sure to hunt down the original transcript.
“A mutual friend, Mr. Erben, suggested I meet you,” said Siefkin. “And Flicksteger at XGRS. He said you had ideas of travelling to Tibet, to bring that country under German influence. What qualifications place you as a person fit for that task?”
Fischer remembered the Abbot in the hall that morning: the physical attributes of a vulture inside a death black cloak; a gliding spectre disappearing behind Siefkin’s door.
“For many years,” said Chaokung, “I have been a member of the Grand Council of Lamas who possess special influence in India and Tibet. Captain Siefkin: this is my proposal. Tashilumpo, to the south of Tibet, is the seat of the Panchen Lama. Also an area of anti-British sentiment. It is perfect for transmitting XGRS into India.”
Reading the transcript Fischer didn’t chuckle. On one hand he knew Chaokung was an unreliable charlatan. On the other hand, his pitch hit key aims Siefkin and the Abwehr had long desired.
“I think it would work,” said Chaokung. “I foresee myself going there, accompanied by a General Staff officer, an aviation expert, a wireless operator, a courier and the transmitter. We might go via Kabul, or, I am willing to go and meet them in Berlin.”
Siefkin was a broad-shouldered man with a tanned, stout face. Silently, he considered the Abbot’s idea. A workaholic, Siefkin was permanently frustrated, but this had merit.
“What do you know of India?” he asked.
“A great deal. For example, Sahay the nationalist leader, is in Shanghai this very week. Well, he could be directly influenced! If Germany was to back the movement for independence, why, a great many advisors could be sent to them. They could be directed in military and aviation tactics; trained to use the equipment!!”
“What would you get? What is your interest?” asked Siefkin.
“The adventure of visiting Tibet. An important role in unfolding matters. Revenge on Britain. Apart from travel and living expenses, I have no financial demands.”
A green-eyed coarse-faced thug looked at the date: four months after Siefkin’s report.
Josef Meisinger was a large, bald, perpetually grinning and ugly man. His callousness was cemented when over two years in Poland’s Kampinos Forest he ordered the mass shootings of 1,700 people. From there he went to Tokyo, acting as Gestapo liason for the embassy, and now he was the new military police attaché at Shanghai embassy. Meisinger intended to round up and kill Soviet spies while in the city. He drank hard and talked often. His brutality threw everyone’s nose out of joint. In his first week, he pressed Japanese commanders to exterminate the German and Austrian Jews living in Shanghai. They expressed their disgust to Fischer. Subsequently, Fischer forgot all about Siefkin.
He dare not challenge Meisinger. The Butcher of Warsaw instilled fear in whomever was around, though Chaokung seemed to be an exception. They met during Meisinger’s second week, arranged again by Siefkin’s man Hermann Erben. Erben had been monitoring the port and interviewing sailors, and assured them he had known the Abbot some time.
“Thank you for agreeing to see me, Colonel. I wondered about the lack of response after my previous visits,” said the monk.
Meisinger said, “Simple protocol. Or just protocol run by simpletons.” He cast a glance over at Fischer. “Consul Fischer asked to sit in and observe this meeting. I consented to this request.”
“Of course. I am glad to have you here, Consul Fischer.”
Meisinger said, “I have read the file on the ‘Radio Tibet’ proposal. Tell me what you told Siefkin.”
Chaokung rattled off the XGRS proposal as Fischer sat quietly. He did not speak at all in the meeting; did not like working closely with Meisinger. Only the chirpy sound of the Abbot’s voice kept him from being sick; kept him from passing out, for while they talked Fischer’s skin was clammy and eyes watering. Initially he wasn’t aware he was zoning out. Then he jolted out sharply from the black of sleep.
“Fischer! Maybe you need to lie down! Show some discipline,” Meisinger said.
He apologised, and Meisinger told Chaokung to continue. Chaokung said he would recommend Fischer a qualified teacher in meditation, and Meisinger laughed.
“I understand that spiritualism plays a large part in German life,” continued Chaokung. “That Police Chief Himmler sees the SS as a modern day version of the Teutonic Knights. The SS lightning bolt symbol is derived from runes, the sun, and victory.”
“It is in honour to our ancestors, and the purity of our race,” said Meisinger.
“Yes, Colonel. These ideas are old, and mystical. Knowledge rooted in the occult, understood by a privileged few.”
Fischer’s ears perked up. Chaokung seemed to be directing Meisinger along an unusual road.
“The solstices, winter and summer, for example. The practices around these events form the rough drafts of the new German baptismal and funeral rites. Deputy Hess is a champion of astrology, seers, mediums and the like. I am told the Fuhrer believes in these ancient powers: do you, Colonel?”
“If these primal sources wish to decontaminate the earth of Jews, cripples, homosexualists, then yes. Cut the weakness off at its head!”
“I am glad your mind is open to this, sir, and here is why. I have been employed by the sages of Tibet to bring a message. The sages commune with a spirit world government. They cannot be seen by the untrained human eye. I was told to tell you that the time is ripe for Germany to make peace.”
There was not a shred of suspicion on Meisinger’s brutal face. The Abbot, Fischer noticed, was also completely convinced of himself.
“I have been authorised by my Tibetan Masters to take the necessary steps. To that end, I wish to travel to Berlin as soon as possible for a meeting with the Fuhrer.”
“What evidence can you offer? If your claims are correct, how can you persuade Hitler to see you?” asked Meisinger.
There was a certainty the Abbot conjured with his hands, his voice; as if some ethereal force was sparking to life in the room. He gestured to their seating arrangement.
“We would sit, like you and I do now. Just the two of us: there are some things that need to be secret; I would reveal to him these divine ways. Hidden knowledge and ritual for recognising these immortal energies.”
He looked deep into Meisinger’s soul, as if Fischer was not in the room, and then gestured to the back wall. “Then… when our world and the spirit worlds align, they will show themselves!”
He swept his arm inward. “Three of the Wise Men of Tibet will appear through the wall. To the Fuhrer they will repeat the message I have conveyed. They will give to him many other essential revelations. This will be the best proof to provide Hitler. Proof of the supernatural power at the disposal of the Supreme Initiates!”
That evening, Rudolf Hess climbed up to his Messerschmitt bomber and took a final look back across Augsburg-Haunnstetten airfield. Back to his Bavarian home where he’d laid his provisions in the case on his bed: maps, goggles, a torch, dextrose tablets and two vials of sacred liquid from the Panchen Lama. One last look before he climbed inside the cockpit and turned the key in the ignition.
The Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop was the Nazi leader all other Nazi leaders hated. He fought with Heydrich and Himmler particularly, over matters of foreign intelligence and police attachés.. He’d acquired his position through marrying money, pushing people around and always saying what Hitler wanted to hear. His pale eyes were the bottom of a toadstool forehead, the top a slithering silver hairpiece. At his office in Berlin’s Wilhelmstrasse, he paid particular attention to Cable 117: Meisinger’s endorsement of Chaokung as a particularly authoritative Tibetan voice. So important, wrote Meisinger, that Berlin ought to personally invite him there to launch his plan. Fixed to the bottom of the message was Cable 118, marked ‘secret – for the Foreign Office only’. Therein Consul Fischer laid bare the truth of Trebitsch Lincoln: a political adventurer whose Tibetan qualifications were a sham. He wished only to be politically important and even had approached Roosevelt. The ice in Ribbentrop’s eyes melted into red. His forehead wrinkled into jaws with the indignity. He called in Luther, his hatchet man and aide, to compose a reply to Fischer. He would inform Meisinger a precondition of his work at the embassy was to deal only with police work. He was not entitled to report on or deal in Foreign Office matters. When Luther had transcribed the note, Meisinger said he had another job for him.
It was two days later at Police HQ, where Reichsfuhrer-SS Heinrich Himmler was struggling. On top of his usual workload he was compiling data for ‘Aktion Hess’, the planned arrest of hundreds of astrologers, faith healers and occultists. Many of Himmler’s own friends would be on the list. He and Hess had recommended them to Hitler already.
Himmler gave the dossier a rest and dealt with the newly arrived telegram from the Foreign Office. Ribbentrop had forwarded a copy of Meisinger’s Cable 117. As he read it a drop of sweat trickled down Himmler’s chin and pounced on the page. The evidence of Meisinger’s indiscretion was akin to a mob warning: another of Ribbentrop’s power plays happening. There was a knock at the door. Himmler jumped but it was Heydrich, his trusted Chief of Security. Yet Heydrich was pale. He had a letter, sent a letter by Luther. Himmler took it from him and read it over. Luther was also loyal to Himmler, so he hoped for the best, expected the blow to be cushioned. It was not.
By explicit instruction of the Foreign Minister, Heydrich had been advised Lincoln was by birth a Hungarian Jew with insignificant credentials. Meisinger was to be firmly instructed by his his superiors in the Reich criminal Police not to step beyond the boundaries of his job. The Foreign Office outlined that the same applied to the rest of the Abwehr and SS. Politically, Heydrich and Himmler had just both been given a serious bollocking.
A few mornings later, Consul Fischer entered the embassy to the sound of Meisinger swearing. His journey to his office took him closer to the source: The Butcher shoving Louis Siefkin against the wall, twice: arschloch! Flick dich! Bloder dummer Fickkopf! Meisinger smacked Siefkin about the head with a sheet of paper and Fischer whistled as he passed.
By the end of the day, Meisinger’s response to Ribbentrop went through the prescribed service channel, namely Fischer’s office. The language was all defensive: he had only met with ‘T’ in relation to a complaint; the declarations were made on T’s own initiative; he told ‘T’ he had no authority but would relay the proposal to Berlin. Fischer remembered Meisinger grabbing Siefkin’s head in his hand, and decided he would guard his own flank. He wrote another classified shadow telegram for Ribbentrop under Meisinger’s. It coolly stating he’d not interviewed ‘T’ himself. However, Fischer was aware the Hungarian had been invited to the embassy in February by members of the Abwehr.
Outside he could hear Meisinger screaming at Siefkin again. This was over the afternoon’s mail from Heydrich to Meisinger, which Fischer also had the pleasure of seeing. Police Chief Heydrich threatened disciplinary action: surely Meisinger realised the man was a Jew! As Siefkin’s head banged off the wall, Fischer used the noise as cover for a good laugh.
A little over a year later, the Trebitsch incident cost both Louis Siefkin and Hermann Erben their jobs. Japanese command refused to build Meisinger’s concentration camp. Instead, he continued to ferret out Soviet spies in Shanghai, and spoke of the job to his drinking buddy Richard Sorge, a Soviet spy.
Drawn from over two hundred sources, including Bernard Wasserstein’s Secret Lives of Trebitsch Lincoln. Brought to you by patreon.com/andyluke where you can read the full commentaries.
andy-luke.com 